“Scum Fee”

For the three minutes of “Scum Fee”, the Portland quartet Drunk Dad can’t decide exactly what sort of band they are. Sure, the drums kick like math rock, but the guitar groove suggests a platter of stoner metal warped in the sun, turning at the wrong speed. The vocals swivel between a psychedelic Butthole Surfers smear and an anthemic grunge refrain, between a busted doom caterwaul and an un-mollified hardcore yammer.

The tension between these references is exhilarating, with Drunk Dad pushing through the messy froth with abandon, as though they’re simply trying to emerge alive from their own massive stylistic gyre. The rest of Morbid Reality, the latest in a string of promising short bursts from these new bruisers, follows that same strategy of fomented eclecticism—push each influence hard enough, and they’ll eventually crumble into one another. Morbid Reality is out June 7.